


I Always Needed You

by Martian_Medievalist



Category: 19th Century CE RPF, 20th Century CE RPF, Actor RPF, Broadway RPF, Historical RPF
Genre: Broadway, F/M, Historical, History, Rare Pairing, Theatre, theatrical, theatrical history
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-19
Updated: 2014-11-19
Packaged: 2018-02-26 05:29:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2639855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Martian_Medievalist/pseuds/Martian_Medievalist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Caroline hopes for a little tranquility in the afterlife, but David Belasco has other plans.  If it has been over between them for thirty years, why is he still waiting for her?</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Always Needed You

**Author's Note:**

> AUTHOR'S NOTE: Do you ever have an otp, forget about them, and then have it come back and hit you like OMGWTF months or even years later? That's what happened to me, and this is the semi-coherent result. Seriously, I shipped these two when I was like 13. I was a strange child.  
> Just a little background info: David Belasco was an extremely influential playwright/producer/director/everything theatrical during the late 1800s and early 1900s. As an acting teacher, he made many a star; Caroline Louise Dudley AKA Mrs. Leslie Carter was one of them - a Chicago socialite who went in as a scandalous divorcee and came out a star :)   
> Seriously though, google David Belasco. Dude's a riot. Broadway history FTW.  
> Anyway, this is in no way 100% historically accurate, and all interpretations of character are my own. Read at your own peril.  
> This is my first anything on here. I hope you like it :D  
> Feel free to comment, review, critique, etc.

So this is it, Caroline Louise Dudley, known to the world as Mrs. Leslie Carter, wondered. Well, I guess I had a good go of it. It sure as hell wasn’t easy. She grimaced. It really hadn’t been easy, especially at the end. Her vaudeville career went down the tubes, and she retired to California, taking two small parts in films. That was it. So much for the American Sarah Bernhardt.   
Caroline raised a hand to her forehead and almost jumped backwards. The hand held out before her was not the hand of an eighty year old woman. It was smooth and pale, with expertly manicured nails. Gazing further up her arm, Caroline saw that she was no longer wearing the nightgown she had died in. It had been replaced with an extravagant pink silk dressing gown dripping with lace. She felt her face: wrinkle-free, youthful, the face of a woman in her early thirties. Her hair was pinned up and held back by a periwinkle-blue scarf, but she was sure it was as flaming red as it had ever been.   
With a vague sense of delight, Caroline recognized her costume from Madame du Barry. What an astounding production! She smiled at the memory. Such a hit! And oh, that fool who played my lover. He was supposed to fall on the bed when I knocked him out, but the dolt fell off to the side and broke twelve hundred dollars’ worth of furniture! Thank heavens I saved the scene with my ready wit! And Mr. Belasco, he didn’t give a damn about the furniture; he was just so pleased with me…  
She stopped herself. No. She must not think of Mr. Belasco. It was over between them. It had been over for thirty years.  
Suddenly, a trumpet sounded in front of her. The sound was echoed by other horns heralding some sort of arrival. The pale grey light that filled this odd little space between life and eternity turned gradually pink, gold, light purple, blazing orange—the most beautiful sunset Caroline had ever seen. How strange that there wasn’t a sun to be found. The mist began to dissipate, and the shape of a man emerged. Caroline could make out his white hair, long beard and robe.  
“Saint Peter?” she called. He carried a massive tome with both hands. When he was about ten feet from Caroline, he paused, and a podium rose up out of the ground before him. He set the book down, opened it, and began flicking through the pages.  
“Ah yes, Caroline? Mrs. Leslie Carter?” Saint Peter spoke with a clipped, slightly British accent. “Let’s see…I suppose you’ve been a good woman. Always cared for your children and husband, performed beautifully on the stage and screen. Of course, there is the matter of your messy divorce-”  
“Leslie Carter is a filthy liar!” Caroline snapped. “I swear, anything he said about me and…other men…is complete falsehood. I only kept his name to spite him, the lowdown, no-good son-of-a-”  
“Calm down, Mrs. Carter,” Saint Peter held up one hand. “Your ex-husband is not on trial. You are.” By now, a massive gilded gate had emerged from the fog behind him.   
She looked him in the eye. “Well, what’s the verdict?”  
He sighed and shut the book. “You lived life nobly, Mrs. Carter. I know it was not always easy to remain dignified throughout your struggles. I shall not keep you from your reward.” With a dramatic wave of his arm, the gates opened inward.   
Caroline could have shrieked with joy. Paying no heed to the heavenly doorman, she bolted forward. Just as she reached the gates, they slammed shut with a thunderous CLANK. The shock almost knocked her over. Tears filled her eyes. What is this? Where am I? Is this some sort of twisted trick?  
The sound of laughter penetrated Caroline’s storm of emotions, turning her sadness to anger. She turned on the laughing Saint Peter. Spasms of mirth shook him. He could barely stand.  
“Who are you?” Caroline asked, her rage now gone over to bewilderment. “I can’t believe Saint Peter would play such a cruel joke.”  
“Of course I’m not Saint Peter!” he giggled, able to stand erect now. “You mean to say you don’t recognize me after all these years, Caroline?” He drew the robe up over his head and flung it to the ground. Underneath he wore a black suit and the collar of a Catholic priest. Caroline’s eyes widened.  
“Still nothing? I’m disappointed.” His eyes twinkled. Caroline was incapable of speaking. He yanked the beard clean off of his face, heedless of the adhesive. Caroline stared with a mixture of awe and horror as David Belasco presented himself to her.  
“Long time, no see?” He held out his hand, smiling. Such a charming smile on a charming face. Never quite handsome, but still so-  
She snapped to attention. What are you doing here?” she asked coolly.  
Belasco’s face sobered. “Caroline, I have to speak with you. It’s-” His voice caught in his throat “-extremely important.”  
“After you wouldn’t speak to me for thirty years?”  
He hated to admit it, but she had a point.

New York City, 1906  
David’s office was a complete wreck, as usual. Newspapers bearing reviews of his current play, The Girl of the Golden West, and plans for his state-of-the-art new theatre at 111 West 44th Street jostled for supremacy on his crowded oak desk. Scripts for upcoming plays sat piled on a side table. David admired the poster hanging on the opposite wall. Advertising “David Belasco’s Romantic Play” The Heart of Maryland, it bore the image of a Civil War soldier embraced by a beautiful redheaded Southern belle in white. Maurice Barrymore had been fine as the male lead, but David would never forget Mrs. Leslie Carter’s spectacular performance as the title character. Fiery hair billowing behind her, blown by giant offstage fans, she gripped the great bell’s clapper to prevent it from ringing and alerting the guards of her lover’s escape. The crowd went wild. David had never seen a longer standing ovation.  
He’d always remember how Caroline looked in that show. It was then, he knew, that he first acknowledged how she made him feel. He was no stranger to the casting couch. Beautiful, promising young women threw themselves at his feet for a shot at the big time. Despite being a married man with two daughters, he had more than his fair share of dalliances and one night stands. But Caroline wasn’t like that. She was trying to get away from scandal, from a vindictive ex-husband who vilified her as an adulteress based on flimsy “evidence” and disowned his own son when he sided with his mother. However much David wanted her to be his, he could not bring himself to cause more trouble for her.  
So there he was, ten years later, sitting in his office like an damned fool, fantasizing about his most successful protégée when he had every pretty young actress in Manhattan at his beck and call. You damned fool.  
A knock came at the door. “It’s open,” David called absentmindedly. When he turned away from the poster, Caroline stood in the doorway. The artist’s likeness was a poor substitute for the real thing. Her magnificent red-gold hair was done up under a feathered hat that David found a bit tacky but nevertheless looked appropriate atop her lively, beautiful face. The dress she wore was a forest green that complimented her eyes nicely.  
“Mr. Belasco,” she said. She kept her back rigid and her arms at her side, as if she feared her reaction to what she was going to say. “There is something you ought to know.” Caroline paused, perhaps for dramatic effect, perhaps to calm her nerves.  
“Well, I’ve heard it all,” David winked with an air of confidence he wasn’t sure he felt. “I am David Belasco, after all.”  
A faint smile touched Caroline’s lips. It faded quickly. “This past week I was married. To Lou Payne.”  
David was stunned. He felt as though the walls were closing in and the floor was falling out from under him. Panicked, he gripped the edge of his desk. “M-married?” he stammered, then caught himself. “You cannot possibly be married!” His voice was more level now. “Not if you’re an actress!” He nodded smugly.  
Caroline’s face flushed as red as her hair. “What of it?” she retorted sharply. “I’m fed up with this manic life. Rehearsal this, opening that. I can’t take it anymore! I need tranquility.”  
“Ha! You really think you’ll find it with a boardinghouse actor?”  
She moved as if to strike him, but he sidestepped her easily. Though he didn’t show it, he was reeling from her words. She hurt him, and all he could think of was how to hurt her.  
“And just how do you expect to make a living?”  
“Lou and I will go into vaudeville.”  
David howled, a deafening, mirthless laugh. “You won’t last a week without me. I created you.”  
“You created your own illusion!” Caroline shouted. “It was ME they all cheered. Not you with your elaborate sets and trite melodrama. Me, Mrs. Leslie Carter, the American Sarah Bernhardt. I never needed you!”  
David breathed in and out. “Leave now,” he said in the most even tone he could muster. “Don’t come back.” He turned away from her.  
“Excuse me?”  
“I said leave!” To his horror, David could hear the anguish in his own voice. “I don’t want to speak to you ever again.”  
It was Caroline’s turn to be stunned. Unbelieving, she clenched her fists and spat, “As you wish, Mr. Belasco.” She made his name sound like a swear word. In an instant, she was out the door.  
David heard it slam shut, followed by stomping down the hall and into the stairwell. Slowly, he made his way around the desk. Carefully, he took the poster off the wall, turned it around, and hung it back up so that Caroline’s image faced inward.  
You damned fool, he berated himself. You stupid, damned fool.  
Back at his desk, he leaned his head in his hands and let the tears come.

The actress and the producer stared at one another. “Caroline,” Belasco began, “I wanted to tell you how sorry I-“  
“Don’t.” Caroline felt her icy resolve begin to crack. “You have no right after what you said to me.”  
“What I said? You said you never needed me.” Tears flowed freely down Belasco’s face. “I took a chance on you, made you a star. Hell, I even wrote plays with you in mind! Leslie Carter, may he rot in Hell, left you with nothing. I helped you make a name for yourself, to have a shot at a better life. Like it or not, you did need me.”  
Caroline said nothing. A single tear rolled down her porcelain cheek.  
“And don’t think I didn’t need you. You had fire, you had spirit. You were my muse if ever I had one, Caroline.” He smiled a watery smile. “It didn’t take me long to realize I loved you. I regret that it took me this long to tell you.”  
He gazed at Caroline with an almost boyish look of hope and longing. Finally, unable to control herself any longer, she flung her arms around Belasco’s neck, buried her face in his shoulder and wept. Belasco gently placed his arms around her waist. Caroline felt him tremble.  
“I never guessed,” she moaned, “through all the years.” I always thought you resented me for giving up my acting career.”  
“Well, that too.”  
She slapped him playfully.” A smile had returned to her face. Caroline leaned forward, and Belasco followed suit, meeting her halfway. The kiss set off fireworks inside of her, or so it felt. If he didn’t have an arm around her, holding her up, she would have lost her balance and fallen.  
“So who’s better, me or Maurice Barrymore?” Belasco smirked. Once again, his eyes twinkled. Caroline could not contain herself at this remark. Her laughter came in great peals, shaking her so badly that she would have fallen had Belasco not reached out to catch her.  
“I think you know what I’m going to say,” she grinned and pulled him down for another breathless, lingering kiss.  
When at last they broke apart, Caroline asked, “So where exactly are we, David?” “Mr. Belasco” hardly seemed appropriate anymore.  
David shrugged. “Best I can figure, it’s a meeting place. Souls wind up here and wait for someone to lead them onward. The pearly gates routine was simply a way of passing the time. I was waiting quite a while for you.”  
“Well, you’ve been dead six years.”  
“Oh, but you don’t know the half of it!” His enthusiasm was infectious. “I don’t think time exists here! I’ve been able to pop in and out of the living realm, to my theatre on 44th Street…Look.” He grabbed what appeared to be only mist, but when he drew his arm back, it parted like a curtain, revealing the view from a box seat in an ornate yet cozy little theatre. Caroline looked on delightedly, but paused when she glimpsed the performers onstage.  
“Are those actors NUDE?” She let out a little gasp and David yanked the curtain shut, smiling apologetically.   
“Oops. Forgot about Oh, Calcutta! The 1970s were a crazy decade…I’ll tell you later.” He turned around and pulled back a different curtain. “Right this way, Mrs. Carter.”  
Caroline followed him into the same gorgeous auditorium she had glimpsed before. It was a full house, men and women all dressed for an evening performance, though the fashions seemed a bit off.  
“Different, isn’t it? Though personally, I find the ladies’ clothing of two-thousand-and-fourteen quite becoming.” He admired a woman in a sleeveless purple dress.  
Caroline elbowed him in the ribs. “What did I do?” he asked incredulously, grinning. “I’m with you, aren’t I? Have you even looked at yourself lately?”  
Realizing she hadn’t, Caroline looked down. What she saw took her breath away. Her Du Barry costume had been replaced with a glorious pale blue satin gown. The sleeves were elbow-length and edged ever so faintly with lace. A sapphire necklace adorned her bare throat, and someone had removed her scarf, allowing her hair to tumble freely down her back.   
Overcome with happiness, she kissed David again. “It’s all so beautiful,” she breathed.  
“It would have been even more so with you onstage,” he assured her. “Then again, it did have Frances Starr, Blanche Bates-”  
That earned him a punch in the gut. He laughed and winked at her.  
“So, what’s playing?” Caroline asked.  
“Something about an angry inch. I know, it sounds nonsensical, but that’s twenty-fourteen for you.”  
He took her hand and led her to her seat as the house lights dimmed. The curtain went up, and Caroline leaned her head on David’s shoulder.  
“You know, I think I always needed you,” the old impresario sighed.  
“We needed one another,” Caroline replied. “We still do.”

*Curtain*


End file.
